Sony XBR-55A8F OLED TV Review

Sony’s debut A1E OLED TVs (reviewed here) were nothing if not distinctive. From their unique ‘lean back’ easel-like design to the way they used the actual surface of their screen to deliver their sound, they exuded high-end sophistication and originality from every pore.

Sony’s follow up OLED TVs, by comparison, seem much keener to fit into the crowd. As represented here by the 55-inch XBR-55A8F (KD-55AF8 in Europe), they appear to be focused on essentially giving us a repeat performance of the A1Es picture and sound quality from a more conventional looking chassis. Why? Actually, that’s a pretty good question…

Given that they’re more or less identical in screen specification and features, I’d expected that the A8F series would sell for less than the ‘designer’ A1Es (A1s in Europe). However, at the time of writing, the 55A8F is listed on Sony’s website at $2,800, while the 55A1E is just $2,500. And there’s an even bigger price gap in the A1E’s favor when you move up to the 65-inch screen size.

European pricing is, inexplicably, completely different. The 55-inch A8F and A1E models cost more or less the same as each other, while the 65-inch AF8 is actually £300 cheaper than the 65-inch A1!

In the US at least, though, the current pricing situation means that really the main raison d’etre for the A8F series is that they provide a more straightforward design option for people who don’t like the A1E range’s angled-back screen and/or want to hang their TV on the wall.

Different by design

The 55A8F certainly does look different to the A1Es. Its screen sits very low on a relatively conventional desktop stand, and its rear is a more conventional combination of ultra-thin edges and a chunkier mid section hosting the TV’s connections and processing.

This ‘chunky bit’ covers quite a bit more of the rear than we see with many rival OLED TVs. However, the 55A8F still doesn’t stick out far from your wall if you decide to go the wall-hanging route. It also makes clever use of plastic covers and cable channeling to keep its rear as tidy as possible.

The Sony A8F (AF8) OLED TV.Photo: Sony

The chunky section of the rear also joins the support ‘leg’ of the A1E models in carrying a woofer for adding bass to the stereo sound produced by the A8F’s screen.

The 55A8F also follows the A1E’s lead with its ultra-narrow bezel. Aside from a tiny silver trim, there’s hardly anything to remind you that there’s actually a frame wrapped around the 55A8F’s pictures. In this respect the 55A8F follows Sony’s desire to have you focus on the pictures you’re watching, not the hardware that’s producing them.

Same difference

Aside from its design and marginally different audio configuration, the 55A8F really doesn’t offer any major differences to its predecessor. Connections comprise the same four HDMIs (two ‘enhanced’ for full bandwidth 4K HDR feeds), three USBs and both hard-wired and Ethernet Wi-Fi options. The internal processor is the same (Sony’s X1 Extreme platform). And so far as I can tell, the panel at the 55A8F’s heart is the same, too.

Certainly Sony suggested that this was the case when it launched the A8F models at the CES in January, and my measurements of its brightness and input lag yielded essentially the same results that I got from the A1E. That’s a peak brightness of marginally over 700 nits on a 10% white HDR window when using its Standard HDR picture preset, and closer to 640nits with the other preset options; plus around 48ms of input lag when HD gaming, or around 30ms when 4K gaming (provided you’ve selected the TV’s Game mode).

These numbers do not stack up particularly well against other premium 2018 TVs I’ve looked at so far. Samsung’s Q9FN models (reviewed here) deliver peak brightness on the same white HDR window of around 2000 nits, while LG’s new E8 OLED TVs (reviewed here) deliver around 820 nits. And both the LG and Samsung newcomers suffer less than 20ms of input lag in their Game modes.

Rear view of the Sony A8F OLED TV.Photo: Sony

The potential ace up the 55A8F’s sleeve, though, could be its X1 Extreme processing system. This, together with careful in-factory calibration of all Sony’s OLED TVs, certainly helped the A1Es stand out from the crowd. So there’s no reason to suspect that won’t be the case again with the 55A8F.

Dumb smarts

Before confirming that, though, I need to spare a (harsh) word for the 55A8F’s operating system. For as well as persisting with essentially the same horribly laid out and ‘squishy’ remote control Sony has bizarrely persevered with for generations now, the 55A8F also continues Sony’s relationship with Android TV. Right down to the same overbearing menus, confusing navigation paths, and lack of customization options. Worst of all, having to power Android TV causes both the 55A8F’s smart and basic control menus to run painfully sluggishly at times.

The 55A8F is using Android 7 right now, but Sony is saying it will update the set to Android 8.0 in due course.

The 55A8F’s pictures appear to be more or less dead ringers for those of the A1E models. Which is good news in lots of ways, but bad news in one pretty important one.

The good stuff centers on the frankly stunning control and precision exerted over the image by Sony’s X1 Extreme picture processing system. There’s hardly any element of the picture with any source that doesn’t look beautifully refined.

The Sony A8F OLED TV in a slightly peculiar living room.Photo: Sony

Video noise, for instance, is essentially non-existent. There’s no trace of the slightly grainy look bright, richly colored HDR images can still exhibit on LG’s 2018 OLED TVs. The screen’s near-perfect black levels (this is an OLED TV, after all) appear completely free of the gentle fizzing noise and occasional grey blocking artefacts also still found on LG’s much-improved 2018 OLEDs.

Sony’s motion handling, meanwhile, is so far ahead of all the competition that it’s almost silly. Even without Sony’s MotionFlow processing applied motion looks less billowy than it usually does with OLED technology. But if you do decide to use MotionFlow, its Standard and True Cinema settings can both reduce judder and motion blur without making the picture look unnaturally fluid, or causing many unwanted side effects. It even holds up during exceptionally busy content, such as a mass battle or frantic car chase. Truly outstanding.

There’s a remarkable level of refinement, too, in the 55A8F’s handling of color. Tones across the board look immaculately natural and beautifully balanced, regardless of whether you’re watching a standard dynamic range documentary or a high dynamic range cartoon. There’s also no hint of the distracting striping problem that some HDR TVs suffer with when trying to show subtle color blends.

Stand detail of the Sony A8F OLED TV.Photo: Sony

The 55A8F’s freedom from video noise and deft, ultra-refined color and light management helps it recreate a sense of depth, space and all-round clarity in its images that again I don’t think any rival manufacturer can fully compete with (though the Q9FN gets close). As Moses walks between palace columns on his way to visit a sick pharaoh in Exodus: Gods And Kings, for instance, I was more aware of the full depth of the image and the various layers of detail within it than I’ve ever been before. And this is a test sequence I use a lot.

Not surprisingly, the refinement of Sony’s processing can also help 4K pictures appear packed with fine details and textures - as well as enabling the 55A8F to upscale sub-4K sources upscale to the screen’s native 4K pixel count more successfully and convincingly than arguably any rival brand of TV.

As with the A1E, the 55A8F additionally does a remarkably convincing job of upgrading standard dynamic range content to HDR. The gently expanded color tones still look believable, and the more dynamic light levels always look in perfect balance.

The net result of all the 55A8F’s strengths is a picture that’s generally as superlatively immersive as it is beautiful. And all this is before the A8F series has received its imminent firmware update to deliver support for the superior Dolby Vision HDR format.

At this point you’re probably wondering if I’ve forgotten the ‘bad news’ I mentioned at the start of the performance section of this review. Unfortunately, I haven’t.

The Sony A8F OLED TV.Photo: Sony

The issue is simply that it really isn’t very bright. At all. Which means that it isn’t in a position to deliver the sort of impact with HDR material that we’re now starting to expect - at least from premium products like the 55A8F.

Coming to the 55A8F after being dazzled (in different ways) by HDR on the LG OLED65E8 and Samsung QN65Q9FN, I immediately felt underwhelmed by the subdued look of the Sony’s HDR images. Colors don’t pop off the screen in the same way, daylight skies don’t get as close to that treasured HDR ‘real world’ look, bright highlights feel slightly muted, and the brightest colors lack that intensity and ‘volume’ you can only reach when you’ve got plenty of brightness to play with.

Enlightening head to head

Watching the same content playing simultaneously on the 55A8F and an LG OLED65E8 positioned alongside it really rammed the Sony’s brightness shortfall home. The difference was so stark, in fact - despite there only being around 110 measured nits between the two sets - that it almost felt at first like the LG was doing HDR while the Sony was stuck in SDR mode.

Longer term head to head viewing reveals that this initial impression is rather unfair. The 55A8F’s HDR pictures are, after all, comfortably more dynamic looking than standard definition ones. I also began to suspect, moreover, that Sony might be deliberately reining in the brightness of its OLED HDR images to a) deliver better tone mapping in areas of peak brightness, b) reduce the potential ‘bleaching’ impact on bright colors that OLED’s white sub-pixel can cause, and c) limit the potential for color noise. In other words, the 55A8F may well be trading raw HDR impact for more refinement.

Even if I’m right about this, though, the fact remains that the 55A8F doesn’t have either the peak highlight punch or average brightness levels to deliver the sort of spectacle HDR LG’s latest OLEDs can. Never mind Samsung’s Q9FN LCD sets. And for me that’s a pity.

Corner detail of the Sony A8F OLED TV.Photo: Sony

Another side effect of the relatively subdued brightness of Sony’s HDR pictures is that they don’t tend to look quite as sharp as those of LG’s E8 and Samsung’s Q9FN models, as there’s not the same light range to help delineate subtle pixel-level light differences.

There’s also noticeably less shadow detail in the darkest parts of HDR pictures than you see with LG’s E8 OLED. This can sometimes cause the Sony to suffer a touch of the ‘silhouetting’ issue associated with low brightness HDR TVs, where dark objects that appear against relatively bright backdrops can look flat and devoid of detail.

One other much smaller issue finds the processing Sony uses to avoid color striping during HDR playback slightly reducing detail. For instance, in the 4K Blu-ray of Exodus: Gods And Kings, during the dusk sequence just before Moses throws his sword into the Red Sea, while the 55A8F does a superb job of removing the banding in the background hills and dusk skies seen with alarming regularity on other HDR-capable TVs, the hills tend to blend into the misty skies more than they should.

The 55A8F’s sound quality is pretty similar to that of the A1E - which is a good thing. The ‘screen is the speaker’ approach delivers a pleasingly open, dynamic mid-range that contains plenty of detail and well-rounded vocals. The sound is also more direct than that of most TVs, since it’s coming from the front of the TV rather than its rear.

The rear bass driver manages to underpin the action with a decent amount of bass. Though not as much, it seemed to me, as you got with the A1E.

The sound stage can also start to become a touch boxed in and harsh when the going really gets tough. But for the most part the sound is still well above average - which is quite something considering you’re talking about a TV with no visible speakers.

Top view of the Sony A8F OLED TV.Photo: Sony

Verdict

The 55A8F provides an emphatic reminder of the outstanding quality of Sony’s image processing. The thought of how this might evolve even further when TVs start to appear using Sony's upcoming X1 Ultimate processor is mouthwatering.

For now, though, beautiful though many aspects of the 55A8F’s pictures are, the lack of any improvement in brightness over last year’s A1Es ultimately leaves you feeling like Sony is just treading water with its sophomore OLEDs. Especially in the context of the advances we’ve already seen from other TVs this year.

This lack of progress becomes even more of an issue in the US when you consider that unless you really can’t live with the A1E’s lean-back design, you can currently pick up one of those models for hundreds of dollars less than the equivalent-sized A8F.

I've spent the past 20 years writing about the world of home entertainment technology--first at Home Cinema Choice magazine, where I became Deputy Editor, and for the past 17 years on a freelance basis. In that time I'm fairly confident that I've reviewed more TVs and projec...